Every Sperm Is Sacred

"Every Sperm Is Sacred" is a musical sketch from the film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. The song was released on the album Monty Python Sings and was nominated for a BAFTA Music Award for Best Original Song in a Film in 1983. André Jacquemin and David Howman wrote the music and Michael Palin and Terry Jones wrote the lyrics and performed the sketch, which is hailed as one of the Pythons' great sketches.

The song is a satire of Catholic teachings on reproduction that forbid masturbation and contraception by artificial means. The sketch, called "The Third World", is about a Catholic Yorkshire man played by Michael Palin, with his wife played by director Terry Jones. They have sixty-three children, who are about to be sold for scientific experimentation purposes because their parents can no longer afford to care for such a large family with the local mill being closed. When their children ask why they do not use contraception or sterilisation, or why the father does not perform self-castration, their father explains that this is against God's wishes, and breaks into song, the chorus of which is:

The production in The Meaning of Life was filmed in Halifax, West Yorkshire, Skipton, North Yorkshire and choreographed by Arlene Phillips to a storyboard by Jones. The hearty and cheerful nature of the musical number is counterpointed as the children are marched off to their fate as the song ends, singing a dour rendition of the chorus as their middle-aged Protestant neighbours (played by Graham Chapman and Eric Idle) comment on the teachings of the Catholic Church. They ironically add that they have two children, which is the exact number of times they have had sex in their marriage. This is a joke on the stereotype that Protestants control their reproduction by barely having any sex at all.

...
Wikipedia